The Business of HockeyDiscuss the financial and business aspects of the NHL. Franchise sales, valuations, TV contracts, ratings, expansion, relocation, the CBA and work stoppage discussion goes here.
ESPN's John Skipper: "We are doing hockey highlights."
Uhh, the MLB is quickly falling out of the picture. The only thing they manage to do right is local broadcasting contracts, and they only get those because for roughly four months, they're the only major sport on television. Kinda hard for your local sports broacasters to survive through June/July/August/September with no hockey, football, basketball, baseball.
On average, 9% of Detroit area homes tuned in to Tigers games last year. just 3.5% of Detroit area homes tuned in to the average Red Wings game in 2011-12.
Can we stop with the baseball is dying crap? It's rolling in money, TV contracts, local TV ratings and attendance is going up again.
On average, 9% of Detroit area homes tuned in to Tigers games last year. just 3.5% of Detroit area homes tuned in to the average Red Wings game in 2011-12.
Can we stop with the baseball is dying crap? It's rolling in money, TV contracts, local TV ratings and attendance is going up again.
Baseball on the local level is thriving. The problem is that the national number is heavily dependent on a good market(s) carrying it. Kinda like the NHL on that front.
On average, 9% of Detroit area homes tuned in to Tigers games last year. just 3.5% of Detroit area homes tuned in to the average Red Wings game in 2011-12.
Can we stop with the baseball is dying crap? It's rolling in money, TV contracts, local TV ratings and attendance is going up again.
Ahh, yes. Let's use a team that made it to the World Series as our example... Good point...
Used to love ESPN years ago, when youd come home from school. Up Close followed by Sportcenter and depending on the day you'd get a really good college bball game back before making the jump from high school became so common. Games that featured Iverson, Duncan, Camby, Marbury or an NHL game with NHL2night after.
but that was soooo long ago... i dont understand why ESPN's handling of hockey still bugs some of you. i only watch their channels now for Soccer matches and the occasional episode of 30 for 30.
Espn only covers the sports and events they own the rights to. During the lockout the WNBA got more time on Sportscenter then the nhl/nhlpa negations. Deadspin does a good job of tracking espn's crap everything from them stealing other news sites scoops and passing them off as their own to hiring scam artists to blog for them etc etc. http://deadspin.com/espn/
Bingo...which is why I am not taking there lack of coverage personally.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Faidh ar Rud Eigin
PTI is one of the few ESPN programs that consistently talks about hockey and while their opinions for the most part conform to typical ESPN doctrine on hockey they're no worse than some full time hockey analysts.
Besides, Kornheiser is a baseball/football guy, not a basketball. Wilbon is a basketball guy but he's actually a big Chicago fan. Goes to quite a few Blackhawks games (When he's not working either). They're not good hockey analysts but it's far worse when ESPN's other guys talk about it.
I hate ESPN but PTI I'll watch.
PTI is okay. I love the 30 for 30 movies. If I find or remember there is a USMNT game on I turn it on. I watch the occasional baseball game as well. I only watch ESPN on a regular basis during the college football season, and by regular basis I mean three or more times a week.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Bullwine85
They still have the rights to USMNT home matches. It's away matches they don't have the rights to. Same thing with Mexico, they have the rights to the home matches, not the away matches.
Right now, ESPN is too focused on:
Kobe/Howard catfight
Smith/Bayless having a {MOD EDIT} **** waving contest
Tebow running shirtless at practice (seriously, they had a full article about it)
Manti T'eo and his nonexistant girlfriend.
They're even giving BASEBALL less coverage, and that's our pastime! And anytime they cover the NBA they act like only 6 teams exist. Even our NBA team (the Bucks, go ahead and laugh), barely gets any mention win or lose. Even when they beat one of those six teams ESPN hypes nonstop.
Even when the Lokomotiv crash happened in 2011, ESPN gave the front page to the Packers. And as much as I love my Packers, the fact that the crash was NOT the #1 story for about 5 hours was disgusting
All I can say is poor Steve Levy. He seems like one of the hosts who tries his hardest to give hockey a mention, with little success.
How can ESPN improve? Going back to their roots, and giving actual sports news. And maybe even getting the rights to sports Americans aren't familiar with (such as Rugby).
ESPN will be forced to change things if NBCSN ever gets in 90%+ of homes and don't turn their programming into sports themed gossip shows.
On average, 9% of Detroit area homes tuned in to Tigers games last year. just 3.5% of Detroit area homes tuned in to the average Red Wings game in 2011-12.
Can we stop with the baseball is dying crap? It's rolling in money, TV contracts, local TV ratings and attendance is going up again.
Amen! However, I do think the non-stop emphasis on Yankees vs. Red Sox all the time (which even ESPN's Michael Wilbon has lamented on air many, many times), is backfiring, and perhaps might even be hurting the sport. It's pretty pathetic that a major-market team like the SF Giants, who have won two of the last three championships, gets not even a tenth of the coverage the Red Sox do. Both are major market with large fan-bases, but only one is championship-caliber while the other is a disgrace to professional athletics and all that is good & holy. Yet, ESPN revolves around the Sox and their endless drama. Call me crazy, but I don't think that's a great business decision right there, and I do seriously believe most viewers are bored with it, and most American baseball fans are sick to death of hearing about the Red Sox (and, to a much lesser extent, Yankees) day in and day out. Hell, most people here in the Boston area are sick of the Red Sox at this point: Local TV ratings are down, the (phony) sellout streak is coming to an end (part owner Larry Luccihino said as much during a recent press conference), the radio outlet - WEEI, once a juggernaut of all sports radio in America - just fired their program director/afternoon host and is well behind their competitor (who carries the Bruins & Patriots) ratings-wise, and I don't see anywhere near the amount of Red Sox merchandise on folks while out and about that I once did.
As for ESPN's coverage of hockey, I'm not going to come down quite as hard on them as some others. They do have Barry Melrose and Steve Levy, they do show highlights, PTI will insert hockey discussions here and there. So, it could be much worse. But, yeah, they could stand to broaden their horizons a bit, and I do think the constant emphasis on Kobe-Lebron, Sox-Yankees, etc. is starting to backfire in the court of public opinion. And with NBC, CBS, and Fox all having either launched or about to launch their own sports networks, maybe now is the time ESPN starts making some adjustments, before the others have any chance in earnest of putting a dent into them.
The problem is "horizontal integration". Disney owns Disney Channel, ESPN, and ABC. Let's say you're Time-Warner or Comcast or even a small regional cable system. Disney only offers a package deal. You have two choices...
You take ABC and ESPN on your standard tier (including a subscription fee for every subscriber on basic cable, and Disney channel on a premium tier.
Or you get zip (no ABC), zilch (no ESPN), nada (no Disney Channel).
Disney has the cablecos are over a barrel.
Disagree, while that may be the case in the short-term, Comcast at least has much deeper pockets than Disney. (Comcast almost acquired Disney previous to buying NBCU). Eventually it will get to the point, where they'll just outbid ESPN for the content they want to show (NFL, MLB, etc.) because it will cost them less than getting raked by their subscriber fees.
This is no different than any other business chain where a middle man gets too greedy and eventually those above and below him cut him out of the game. If Comcast can pump up NBCSN to be a viable alternative to ESPN's original programming (Sportscenter, talk shows and not much else) this might happen sooner than you think provided they can get more premium content.
